So for independent research I have been looking at tutorials for Houdini.

The first time opening Houdini I noticed that Houdini has a menu tab for different categories similar to maya.

In the first opening of the program I created a sphere then I explored some of the menu sets through these sets I found a Firework setting, Clicking on this firework setting created a firework particle system that became attached to the the sphere.

From here I explored the menus and ended up turning the sphere into separate cells. Theses cells were somehow being driven by the fireworks that I placed on the sphere

This created a morphing pulsing sphere that my computer was struggling to deal with, during this simulation test of Houdini I had doubts about the proceeding to try this program since my computer was having problems.

Next Adventures in Houdini I started watching a tutorial through Lynda. Learnt that Houdini has a autosave and incremental save feature just have to turn on on the preferences. Which will be pretty handy.

Houdini s a node based program which has its own terminology that sounds like a bunch of government agencies went crazy with the acronyms and tried rhyming everything.

There's sops, cops, shops, dops, and a bunch of other shorthand ops.

Can be seen below

Playing around with following tutorials to get used to the houdini interface. Everything in houdini is done through the node interface. This object was created through exploring the bevel, poly extrude and edge loop nodes.

I am starting to see the power of using node based programs that allow for non-linear workflow and allows backtracking as Houdini works mostly in a non destructive workflow.

Going through a tutorial in Houdini, I have discovered the power and versatility of the Copy SOP. through this node I have found out you can link this node with other nodes to create some interesting effects. Tweaking some settings you can copy the object the can change size, translation, rotation pretty easily. Through some small modifications you can create some complex changes that are based on per point of the shape being copied. Some of the examples of me playing around with the copy node can be found below.

From playing around with the copy SOP i have become pretty inspired and enthused with using Houdini. But at the same time I am feeling pretty intimidated with eh range of customization and control that Houdini gives the user

#chunny #Chunnybaker #student #sae #animation #houdini #reflection